Healing The Business World – Why Innovation Needs Safe Spaces

Healing The Business World – Why Innovation Needs Safe Spaces

There is a huge transformation going on: A simultaneous process of something new being born & something old about to die. It shows by it’s symptoms caused by the friction: instability, fear, depression, resignation, burnout, …

Like the caterpillar going into the cocoon, we need safe spaces where we are allowed to be vulnerable and real. What if companies provided these safe spaces for healing on a collective and individual level? It would pave the way for true future innovation. Here’s my vision on how this transition can be brought into the world.

My personal story

Early 2017 I was at an edge. I had built a reasonably successful coaching practice, had a wonderful partner, nice apartment and great friends. I had every reason to be excited about life. Except that I wasn’t. I was depressed and hopeless and I didn’t even know why. It took me most of 2017 and a time of deep retreat for a few weeks to realize: All my life I was running after a success that would never fulfill me. And this insight changed my life.

The larger picture

Similarly, I now see a lot of people around me going through difficult times emotionally who are in a lot of pain. And we never learned how to deal with pain. So we either suppress it or numb us (leading to addiction or depression) or we project it outwards as hate (and cause others the pain we don’t want to feel).

We need new ways to deal with pain. We need safe spaces and places where it is okay to be vulnerable and real. And we need to go beyond private seminars and retreats to address everyone who needs this support right now and even more so in the future.

The caterpillar creates a cocoon to go into a mushy state. The old cell structures dissolve and new, so called imago cells emerge. Eventually, an entirely new being is born – the butterfly.

The main purpose of leadership is now to create safe spaces for people to be who they truly are, show up fully without masks and allow for all of their personality, their light as much as the dark, to surface and be held.

The purpose of organizations

Organizations become places for personal growth and healing. And out of this healing something quite magical arises: People come truly alive for the first time. A fire is ignited within them, that fills them with a passion once lit it cannot be expired.

And once this flame is burning, it becomes an infinite renewable energy source that can be directed towards global problems or business challenges.

This is the true source of exponential innovation. By healing ourselves, we are healing the world and create the more beautiful future we feel in our hearts is possible!